China shipowner held over sulphuric acid spill

BEIJING, Nov 18 (Reuters) A Chinese shipowner was arrested following a spill of sulphuric acid which forced more than 1,500 residents to evacuate and killed fish by the thousands, state media said.

Xu Changjun, 41, would face unspecified criminal charges for the spill in August on the Grand Canal, a 900-year-old waterway in east China, Xinhua news agency said, yesterday.

The ship ran aground in the Hangzhou section of the canal in the early hours of August 3. All 220 tons of concentrated sulphuric acid aboard leaked into the river.

''The leakage forced over 1,500 residents of Tangxi and Renhe towns to flee their homes because of the dangerous fumes given off by the acid,'' Xinhua said.

''Fish died by the thousands in the polluted section of the canal, and navigation was suspended for ten hours.'' China has suffered a series of industrial accidents that have contaminated rivers, the most serious of which happened last November when a blast at a petrochemical plant sent toxic benzene compounds into the Songhua River, a source of drinking water for millions.

In June, a truck carrying coal tar overturned, dumping the load into the Dasha River in the northern province of Shanxi and contaminating water supplies for 50,000 people.

REUTERS DKA BST0920